


Aftermath, Sort Of

by alwaysyourqueen



Series: Avery's Commonwealth Adventures [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Chem Use, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:35:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8453716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysyourqueen/pseuds/alwaysyourqueen
Summary: Avery Archer, the sole survivor, doesn't have great coping mechanisms. Thankfully, she's made some good friends who have her back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I had months ago and only just finished polishing. Considering in-game I waited about a thousand years after Kellogg to go to the Glowing Sea, the time and setting of this felt appropriate.

It wasn’t often that Avery gave up. She didn’t usually find herself hopeless, or broken. But today was the exception. It had been a week since she’d watched Kellogg’s memories and seen Shaun taken by the Institute. They had taken him to somewhere she couldn’t find. Going after Virgil in the Glowing Sea felt like too far away to be plausible.

Two hours ago she’d dragged a sleeping bag, a small bag of stored…supplies, and her most treasured holotape out to the Red Rocket Truck Stop. Not too far but not too close to Sanctuary.

The sleeping bag was laid out smooth on the floor, the squishy material being used as a cushion as Avery plopped herself down in the back room. She opened her bag of what one might call supplies, crossing her legs and placing it in her lap. Undoing the zipper revealed her stash of chems. She never used them, but she kept them away from certain others who she didn’t want to have access to her chems. For once, it was for her use that she had them. She’d tried a drug or two before the war, before Shaun was born, but it’d been years even in her conscious timeline.

She pulled a bottle of day tripper out of the bag as well as a red inhaler of jet. She was bent over, shoulders more slumped than usual, with a tired focus on her face. She closed the zipper, and tossed it under the desk to her left, hoping that she wouldn’t need it again.

Finally, her back straightened up and fell against the wall. She opened the bottle of day tripper, taking one of the pills out and swallowing it. The start of it was slow, but she could tell it was going to hit very soon. Next she inserted the “Hi honey!” gift from Codsworth - intended to be from Nate - into her pip-boy, but she didn’t start it just yet. Next was the jet. She knew that jet would make the next fifteen minutes feel like an eternity, and she could remember the life she wanted.

Inserting the mouthpiece of the inhaler to her mouth, she pressed the button and inhaled the sickly gas. It tasted terrible, she could barely breathe it, but the day tripper started to kick in. Her breath slowly sank down into her chest, and most of the jet went down with it.

It took about three seconds before both of her drugs kicked in. The jet was faster, and so the timing worked well. The very relaxing and slow euphoria waved over her and her muscles relaxed. She clicked the play button on her pip-boy, listening to the “voice” of her baby and that of her husband.

“I don't think Shaun and I need to tell you how great of a mother you are. But, we're going to anyway. You are kind, and loving, and funny, that's right, and patient. So patient, patience of a saint as your mother used to say.”

I couldn’t love you enough though, could I, Shaun? I only loved you enough when they took you away.

Each word was dragged out in her mind for what felt like at least a minute each, and her mind got lost in a dozen alternate worlds. Instead of the thoughts she’d had at first, now she was imagining her perfect life. Halloween, family costumes, Shaun's birthday right before Thanksgiving, Christmas, sharing chocolates at Valentine's, and everything else going on. It had been a long time, in her mind. Although it had only actually been 5 minutes or so. She was still extremely high and would be for awhile longer. Of course, that meant she didn't notice the footsteps of a friendly ghoul approaching through her spot in the building.

"Damn, Avery. Never thought you'd do some shit like this." Hancock shook his head and squatted next to the woman, getting comfy for the time being but confiscating the bag of chems from her and tried out her used jet inhaler. "Didn't even finish your hit of jet." He considered taking some mentats, reading all the clearly printed words on the package. He decided against it, discarded the now completely used up jet inhaler and tossed it aside.

Avery had her eyes shut and was still daydreaming about her life, euphoria happily carrying her through her extended wishing for the past. Or a past that never happened. It was another ten minutes until she started to feel the high back off. When she opened her eyes, the world was speeding up and going back to a normal state. She felt the after effect of the drugs - her chest felt like hell - but she was certainly sobering up. "Morning, Hancock," she said in a falsely happy voice, her day tripper not quite having faded yet. She didn't really want to be around anyone, though she had no temptation to do another round of chems. She could tell her head was about to start pounding.

"It's like 5:30 or something. Not morning. You look like shit, let's get you cleaned up and out of this hole." Hancock grabbed her arm and helped her up to her feet. He grabbed the sleeping bag, slinging it over her shoulders and tucking the bag of chems under his arm. Elbow hooked around hers, he started leading the recovering Avery back to Sanctuary. The walk was slower than either of them would like, but the brief hangover from the jet was hitting hard.

After several minutes of slowly more confident steps, the two of them made it to the house that was Avery's (both before the war and now). Hancock sat her down on a plastic chair next to the counter and leaned over on it himself. "What happened, Aves?" He could tell from what she'd chosen that she was looking for a real high. The kind that made you forget and get lost in some train of thought you could go back to again and again. And that led to bad times (or good ones, but in Avery's case it would be bad).

"I didn't tell you what happened with Kellogg, did I? Well here's the long and short: my son has been teleported into the Institute, and he's now ten years old. I missed my son's childhood and have no way to get to him." Avery's voice was snappish, trying to get him to leave her alone.

She'd only realized how much she loved her Shaun when she'd gotten to the Commonwealth. And now she had to live through heartbreak of losing him all over again. How was she supposed to do anything, how was she to fight this unknowable evil that no one else could fight and get her son back? There was just no way to do it.

"Look. Aves, I can't promise anything. You got a tough deal, dealing with all this thrown at you. But you're the most fucking capable woman I've ever seen and you won't let this keep you down."

In her eyes was a (now recovered from the artificial happiness) fiery look that didn't want to be argued with. The former vault dweller just furrowed her brow and set her head down on the counter. "If you'll excuse me, I'd like to be alone right now, Hancock."

The ghoul stood up straight, cracking his knuckles and stretching. "You can't wait out your life in the past. That's what gets people hooked on the Memory Den do, and you don't wanna be those guys." With that, he straightened his hat and walked out of the house, letting the door slowly shut behind him. Avery still had her head down on the counter.

Not even ten minutes later, familiar footsteps once again approached Avery's lonesome form. This time they belonged to Nick Valentine, and he had his hands in his pockets. "Avery…" His voice was concerned. He didn't know what to make of what had happened. Hancock had given him the long and short, and as one of Avery's closest friends he thought it his responsibility to help her.

Avery refused to lift her head. Nick sat next to her. He took off the hat, elbows folding on the tabletop. "Avery, can you tell me what happened? I know it's hard. But you can still trust me." He put a metal hand on Avery's shoulder.

Slowly, she lifted her head up. Tears were swelling in her eyes, and her breathing was uneven. "They took him away. They took him and there's nothing I can do anymore. I just wanted…I just wanted my husband and to raise my son and they took them from me. How can I keep fooling myself that I'm making a difference if I can't…if I can't even keep my son."

Tears started falling down her face, dripping one by one onto the counter below. She put her left hand over her face, fingers pressing her eyes shut as she cried. This was a soulful kind of crying. She was crying what she hadn't in the months she'd been in the Commonwealth.

"Look, I'm not the best at words. And I know we've got a long way to go before I could understand what you're going through. It's no small loss, but you can't give up. Not on Shaun, not on the Institute." He gripped her shoulder more firmly. "I won't let you give up."

Avery turned and leaned over, head making contact with Nick's chest. She pounded her fists on his shoulders, still crying. She knew she wasn't hurting him. "They can take away anything they want. What's even the point? Why do we even…" She couldn't even finish her sentence.

Nick put his arms around Avery's back, and he just took her beating. He knew it would pass, though, and he just held onto her. When she finally stopped her arms dropped and he pulled her closer to him. She put her arms around his torso and tugged herself close, head still in his chest. "We love you, Avery. I love you. We'll get Shaun back." He noticed that the position she was in had to be uncomfortable. He put one arm under her legs and quickly hoisted Avery so she was completely sitting in his lap, legs perpendicular to his sitting position and her torso still facing him.

She cried for five more minutes. Clinging to Nick, crying until she had nothing left to cry with. Then she was still hugging onto the synth as if she were a small child who needed a father figure. And she kind of did. But her father was dead over 200 years ago.

She eventually let go of him. A little while after she stopped crying. "I really am pathetic." She leaned back against the counter edge.

"You're not pathetic for hurting. People hurt. You can hurt too." Nick gently patted her leg as she sat there, trying to give her some semblance of comfort. "And that's what this old bucket of bolts is here for."


End file.
